“Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved” (Mt 9:17).
Mark, Matthew, and Luke all record the reference of pouring new wine into fresh wineskins. What Matthew adds is, “and both are preserved.” Luke adds: “[And] no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”
The Gospel authors offer this teaching of Jesus in the context of the tensions between those who would reject Jesus and those who would follow him and his new way. The new wine represents the acceptance of the Gospel, the Good News of the kingdom of God in their midst. The cost of receiving this new wine though means to change one’s mind and heart. “The tension, and often incompatibility, between the old and the new is part of every religious tradition and attends every change within that tradition. Matthew and Luke wrestled with it and adapted it to their community situation. Contemporary Christians have no less a challenge” (The Gospel of Mark, Donahue, SJ, p. 109). Matthew shared with his community that Jesus is the new Temple, the old had been destroyed in 70 AD.
Following Jesus meant that both the old and new covenants would be preserved. Jesus did not come to abolish the law and prophets, but he fulfilled the Old and in the New brought a greater depth of understanding and practice to a higher level only possible through participating in his life.
We are invited to wrestle as well. The Church is called to change, to be transformed by the Living God. Many say the Church needs to change this and that, not realizing that we are the Church, the People of God, the Body of Christ. If the Church is to mature and grow each of us is to embrace transformation, being made anew through the guiding presence of the Holy Spirit. This invitation is a call to let go of those habits, lifestyles, behaviors, mindsets, attachments, and addictions that are weighing us down or worse holding us in bondage and slavery to our sin, and ultimately keeping us separated from God.
Much of the material and finite things we hold onto prevents us from receiving the new life God wants to pour into us. Jesus is offering us something better than the merely material. He is offering us the love of the Holy Spirit that we were created to receive. In breathing, receiving, resting and abiding in God’s love, we find peace and rest that brings healing and renewal.
Jesus has come to set us free from our enslavement to sin by inviting us to try some new wine which consists of meditating and praying with, contemplating upon, and living the message of his teachings and actions as recorded in the Gospels. We do not have to be afraid of the change and transformation Jesus is calling us to experience. As St Irenaeus, the second-century bishop of Lyons is attributed to have written: “The Glory of God is man fully alive!” Jesus is inviting us to live our lives and live them to the full!
To become new wineskins then, we are called to identify and let go of those selfish and sinful inclinations that keep us constricted, rigid, and curved in upon ourselves. We are to let go of our fears so that we can be healed from them. We also must let go of what appears to be good, but in truth is not the good that God offers. We let go when we are still and allow ourselves to be loved by God. As we experience more of his love, we can see better the false truths, apparent goods, and disordered affections.
We grasp for these substitutes for God because we feel alone and empty. When we instead seek God instead of the substitutes, instead of distractions, we will feel the loneliness, true, but now we can invite God to love us there. That which is not true, good, and beautiful will be poured out. We are emptied of the false so to be filled more with the grace and love of God. We become new, fresh wineskins, capable of receiving a continual pouring in of God’s love.
The more love we allow ourselves to receive, the more purified we become from our creature comforts and the apparent safety and security of this world which is so fragile. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his encyclical, Spe Salve, line 42: “His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation ‘as through fire.’ But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.”
Photo: Enjoying a quiet early evening walk, breathing, receiving, resting and abiding in God’s love, Grand Coteau, Louisianna.
Donahue, John R. S.J., and Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. The Gospel of Mark. Vol. 2 of Sacra Pagina, edited by Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002.
Parallel Scriptural accounts: See Mark 2:22, Matthew 9:16-17 and Luke 5:37-39
Spiritual Stepping Stones 